Arizona’s ban on transgender girls playing girls’ school team sports remains blocked, court says

PHOENIX — A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that bars Arizona from enforcing a 2022 law banning transgender people from playing on girls’ high school sports teams.

In a ruling Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found that the lower court did not err in concluding that there are no significant differences between boys and girls in athletic performance before puberty.

The panel also concluded that the law prima facie discriminates on the basis of transgender status.

The ruling applies only to two transgender people, whose parents filed a lawsuit challenging the law.

The parents’ lawsuit alleges that the lawsuit violates the Equality Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX. The appeals court said the challengers are likely to prevail on their equality protection claim, but the court did not say whether it believes the Title IX claim will prevail.

The case is remanded to the lower court and the proceedings remain blocked until the case is heard.

“We always expected to win this case at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, said Tuesday. “The 9th Circuit is notoriously left-leaning. We did not expect to get a fair hearing in the 9th Circuit.”

Rachel Berg, an attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represents the girls and their parents, said the ruling “recognizes that a student’s transgender status is not an accurate measure of athletic ability and competitive advantage.”

Arizona is among states and school districts that have passed laws restricting access to school sports teams or other facilities to students based on the sex they were assigned at birth, rather than their gender identity.

Arizona officials say the law has won federal approval because it seeks fairness.

LGBTQ+ rights advocates say bills like the one in Arizona and hundreds of others across the U.S. are actually anti-transgender attacks disguised as protections for children, using transgender people as political pawns to mobilize Republican voters.